Ruined Beauty

December 9, 2008

By Arya M., Shrewsbury, MA

A single flower was destined to grow in this barren meadow. A strong wind had carried it to this uninhabited utopia where life is still. She sits as a seed in the stringy grass. A well-appreciated rainfall soaks the ground, leaving it tender and inviting. The seed falls into the soft earth, welcoming the comfort it brings, the security of a place to stay, the promise of an environment to thrive in. But that loyalty was ill-placed. She should not have trusted the land the wind had brought her into.

She drinks and grows and thrives and learns. Soon, she pokes her head back up above the surface, into the world she has not seen for many days. While in the darkness, she yearned for the light, for the warmth, for seeing all that her world was. But once above the surface, she sees that her memories were much more fascinating then the world she now witnesses again. Yet she is still happy. She is drinking and growing and thriving and learning, all in the outside world where everyone can see her and help her and be with her.

As she grows into a sprout and gains a leaf, she feels like she has hit a momentous point in her life. She is one step closer to being all that she has ever wanted to be. Her expectations for herself have come through so far. She hopes that it will continue.

Soon, her stem extends. As it does, she can feel thorns producing on her sides. It displeases her. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Why has this happened?

Later, a bud forms on top of the cursed thorn-covered stem. It is a flower in the making. She is ecstatic and full of anticipation. Her patience wanes; she wishes for herself to blossom now. Why must it wait?

Finally, the day comes. The petals loosen and unfurl. They spread out to the sun and their color makes the meadow all the more beautiful. But the realization hits her that there is no one here; no one to congratulate her efforts, no one to compliment her beautiful, crimson color, and no one to share her feelings of pride with. It seems pointless to her, to have accomplished such a great thing, but have no one to share it with.

So she waits; she waits for some other creature, plant or flower to join her in the meadow of endless grass. She wished the wind had left her near the faraway trees. Any company-even the still silence of the foreboding forest-would have satisfied her now. But there was nothing she could do. She was stuck. She could not move. Her only hope was to wait for others to come to her. A feeling of being trapped now filled her. The feeling was unwelcome and it worried her. What if no one ever came?

Not even a single bug came to greet her. They had the freedom to go anywhere they please, and they stayed away from her. Bugs sickened her. How could they use their independence so foolishly? Why had they not come to acknowledge her existence? Was she not worth the trip? Did the threat of her thorns make her beauty not appealing enough? Were her thorns the only thing they saw, and not the splendor she knew was there? Why was it invisible to all others but her?

There was nothing she could do. She was helpless and hopeless. She slowly emptied herself of all expectation so she would not feel the pain of abandonment. As her feelings released her, her color left her. As her petal wilted, her thorns unknowingly grew. For a while she stood as a gray rose. But as time went on, her petals turned brown, sagged, and fell off. The wind did not bother to drag those pitiful petals to another land. They were to be kept here, where they would not infect the other, more beautiful worlds with their depressing demeanor.

Eventually, all of her petals, which she had once been proud of, left her. Now, an empty and thorn-stricken stem, she drooped in her place, burying herself in the grass, hiding herself from the world she once wished could see her. Maybe if they had, she would still be drinking, growing, thriving, and learning. But they hadn’t. And if they saw her now, they would only see the menacing thorns that seemed to have taken over her existence.

As time went on, time that had unfairly forgot about her, she stretched out onto the inviting grass. Her colorless being-or what was left of her being-was now content, lying in the grass. She no longer cared what others thought of her, it was no longer important. The only thing that mattered, since the world had ignored her, was that she makes herself happy. And lying in the grass, not having to carry the weight of the what-she-once-thought-of-as-a beautiful rose, not having to expose her thorns to the world, and not needing others approval to prove something to herself, she was finally content. She was not satisfied with what she had become, or how she had not grown into what she had always wanted to be, and she did not like having to hide, but life is never what you expect it to be.

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